An ongoing series of articles on songs & performances of the early Grateful Dead.

August 19, 2009

Missing 1969 Shows

I've put together a list of 1969 shows that are not in circulation, with the help of Deadlists.

Some (or most?) of these shows might be in the Vault; some of these shows might not have been played. A few, fortunately, were captured by AUD tapers, and I listed those in hopes that complete SBDs were also taped.
In a few cases, when Deadbase listed the songs that were played at a missing show, I've noted them [ in brackets ] - usually this is just a few songs that someone remembered years later.

I also listed shows that are missing big chunks of music - some of these may be tapeflips, but sometimes the timings of vault reels that Rob Eaton listed correspond suspiciously to the amount of music missing, so it's quite possible more is on the original reels than made it onto circulating copies. (Not all of his timings are correct, though.)
Another thing about cuts - in 1969 it was often Bear's practice to tape a show both on cassettes and reels, so that many shows are available from two sources, and cuts in one copy can be filled in from the other. (One example is the 4/23/69 cut in St Stephen>It's A Sin, which was recovered when a cassette source appeared.) In many cases, an alternate tape is in the Vault that can be used to patch any gaps.

Comments on the tapes are mostly quoted from Deadlists.
This list is something like a "work in progress" since I probably missed a few things and there's always more research that can be done, so let me know if you have corrections / additions.

Updated August 2014.

MISSING 1969 SHOWS

12/31/68 Winterland, SF - [ Midnight Hour ; Dark Star > Saint Stephen > The Eleven > Turn On Your Lovelight ]
(This was the Dead's first live 16-track recording. David Lemieux says, "The reels of 12/31/68 were erased to record the January '69 Avalon shows (hey, tape was expensive!), with one lonely Midnight Hour left on tape, featuring all of the musicians who performed that night in an all-star jam. The sound on this 16-track recording is very poor, filled with distortion.")

1/2/69 Fillmore West, SF

1/3/69 Fillmore West, SF

1/4/69 Fillmore West, SF

1/24/69 Avalon, SF - Apparently another 30 minutes of SBD hasn't made it into circulation yet.

1/26/69 Avalon, SF - There's a big cut in Dark Star, which may be a late tapeflip.

1/31/69 Kinetic Playground, Chicago

2/1/69 Kinetic Playground, Chicago

2/5/69 Memorial Hall, Kansas City - If Eaton's timing is correct the circulating version of this tape is missing 30 minutes, suggesting that perhaps the several cuts are not on the master.

2/6/69 Kiel Auditorium, St Louis - The circulating SBDs are copies from Bear's cassette master. There is a cut of uncertain proportions at 8:34 into the Dark Star. According to Rob Eaton the beginning of this show was mastered onto the end of a cassette containing tape of the Rolling Stones, and this cut is where that cassette ran out. There is another cut between the Cryptical reprise and Feedback, presumably another tape flip.
If Eaton's timing is correct 7 minutes are missing from the circulating tape, implying that the circulating copy has been butchered.

2/9/69 Lyric Theater, Baltimore (early & late shows)

2/12/69 Fillmore East, NYC - We are missing the early show (which is probably in the Vault).
The late show cuts in at the end of Dark Star. Probably the missing 16 minutes on the circulating tape represents the beginning of the Dark Star.

2/19/69 Fillmore West, SF - A tape from this show has circulated under the false date of 6/19/68 - see here. However it's incomplete, and an unknown amount is missing.
(An article notes, "Originally the concert was to be recorded for inclusion on the next Dead album, but last-minute difficulties in setting up the recording equipment scotched that." Supposedly the set ran for "four hours.")
[ Dark Star ]

2/24 + 26/69 Matrix, SF - Hartbeats

3/12/69 Fillmore West, SF [not confirmed]

3/17/69 Winterland, SF [not confirmed]

3/21/69 Rose Palace, Pasadena [ Schoolgirl opener ; "space jam" ]
(A dead.net reviewer describes this as a short set; he may have attended 3/22, which fits this description. Deadlists notes that there could be one or more tunes missing after Schoolgirl on our 3/22 tape, which is under an hour and has several big cuts.)

3/27/69 Merced [not confirmed]

4/11/69 University of AZ, Tucson - Obviously the 1st set is incomplete ; probably Cryptical Envelopment > Drums preceded The Other One but possibly something else. Likely more tunes are missing before that, too -- if the tape catalogued under Set 1 represents the second side of a cassette master, then there's 45 minutes missing previous to where the tape cuts in. According to a newspaper review of the show, they also performed versions of Morning Dew and Sittin' On Top Of The World. Presumably these tunes belong before the Other One.

4/15/69 Music Box, Omaha - Most of the show is AUD only (the first 30 minutes circulate in SBD). The AUD cuts off during the Eleven, so we are missing the end of the show.

4/22/69 The Ark, Boston - There is a cut in The Other One at 1:39, apparently a flip chop on the master cassette ; probably 4 to 9 minutes of Jamming are lost here.
Lemieux has played the vault copy on the Taper's Section, and unfortunately it also cuts after about 5 minutes (cutting back in a minute into Cryptical), so although it has a few more minutes of music, the second half of The Other One is still missing.
(There are also less major cuts in the other Boston Ark shows.)

5/3/69 Winterland, SF, second set - [ Dupree's Diamond Blues ; Sittin On Top Of The World ; Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Turn On Your Love Light ; Baby Blue encore ]
(The SBD for the first set circulates in terrible quality.)

5/8/69 (Listed in Deadbase, but there was no known show on this date.)

5/29/69 Robertson Gym, Santa Barbara - [ Turn On Your Love Light ]
(The 5/11/69 show with the Santana drummers used to be attributed to this date.)

5/31/69 McArthur Court, Eugene - At 1:52 into the Cryptical reprise there is a cut ; probably several minutes are missing here. It's anybody's guess how much of the second set (between Doin' That Rag and Cosmic Charlie) may be missing.

6/20/69 Fillmore East, NYC, early & late shows - [King Bee ; Cold Jordan ; Dire Wolf ; Casey Jones ; Mama Tried ; Turn On Your Love Light: Alligator ]
(A newspaper report of the 6/20 late show specifies that it opened with Dire Wolf - Weir vocals, Garcia pedal steel - and Mama Tried, included King Bee, and closed with Lovelight and a "brief acoustic spiritual" encore. A dead.net review confirms that Alligator was played at one of the shows.)(Lemieux played a Lovelight with this date on the Taper's Section, 6-18-07, noting that Bear taped the show on cassette; but it was actually the Lovelight from 6/21/69.)

6/21/69 Fillmore East, NYC, early show - AUD only

6/21/69 Fillmore East, late show - There is a cut in Dark Star at 5:10 ; most of the Dark Star is missing on the SBD tape. Rob Eaton lists 101 minutes of cassette SBD for this show, but only 91 circulates. One would guess that at least 10 minutes are missing from the circulating Dark Star. The 10 minute discrepancy between the timing Eaton lists and the timing of the circulating tape may be the missing core of Dark Star.

6/22/69 Central Park, NYC - Only first two songs available in SBD; rest of show is AUD only.

6/29/69 The Barn, Rio Nido

7/3/69 Reed's Ranch, Colorado Springs - Lemieux included Hard to Handle, Friend of Mine & Lovelight on the 7-29-13 Tapers' Section; so along with Charlie Miller's circulating tape, we now have the entire show except for Mama Tried.

9/1/69 Baton Rouge Speedway - Lovelight cut. If correct, Eaton's timing implies a complete Turn On Your Love Light on the master. (Tom Constanten recalls the Jefferson Airplane sitting in at this show, which is not on the tape.)

9/6/69 Family Dog, SF - Lemieux played Casey Jones & the Midnight Hour encore on the Taper's Section (8-29-11), which weren't on the circulating copy but are all there is in the Vault; so there may be more missing from this show as well. (The Midnight Hour also came into circulation recently as "unknown show '68.")

[9/11/69 Family Dog? - Only one AUD track of Easy Wind is available (with Jorma K playing slide), but there's no record of a Dead show on this date. Although it's definitely an early Easy Wind, the actual date, and the rest of the show, is unknown.]
It turns out this Easy Wind is actually from the 8/30/69 AUD.

10/26/69 Winterland, SF - second part of show missing: [ King Bee ; Beat It On Down The Line ; Good Lovin' ; Doin' That Rag ; China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider ; Baby Blue ]

[11/7/69 Fillmore - The tape that was long in circulation was edited and missing several songs, but Charlie Miller has released a superior complete copy.
On the circulating tape the Uncle John's Jam cuts off, so part of the Dark Star is lost. There is room to hope that a Vault tape contains the complete Dark Star.]

12/5/69 Fillmore West, SF - AUD only

12/10/69 Thelma, Los Angeles - The Other One suite>Cosmic Charlie// is AUD only. Its placement in this show is uncertain; it's generally attributed to a second set, which is otherwise completely missing. (It's likely the Dead played two long sets on the 10th, as on the 11th-12th, and the Other One suite probably comes from the missing set on the 10th.)

12/14/69 "Kaleidoscope"/Aquarius Theater, Los Angeles [On Tom Constanten's show list, but unconfirmed. May be derived from an older Deadbase?]

12/20/69 Fillmore - The circulating tape was missing a reel from the middle of the show; but the complete show (except for Black Peter) has been released on Dave's Picks 6.

12/21/69 Fillmore - The circulating tape was missing the first reel of the show; but it's now been released on the Dave's Picks 6 bonus disc. Three songs may still be missing.
[ Mama Tried ; Uncle John's Band ; High Time ]

12/22/69 Napa Valley Sports Camp

12/30/69 Boston Tea Party - The circulating soundboard cuts just as The Other One's last vocals are ending, and resumes immediately afterward near the beginning of Cosmic Charlie. Though it's missing on the tape, it seems almost certain that they went on to play the Cryptical reprise before transiting into Cosmic Charlie. Since this reprise varies from 2 minutes to 12 or more, it's difficult to say how much music is missing here.
Dark Star cuts as they are gliding down toward the second vocals ; probably around 3-4 minutes are missing before the end of the tune. After this cut the tape splices to the tag end of Alligator. It is usually assumed that the set ran Dark Star > Alligator, but this is a short set as the circulating tape runs, even after adding 3 minutes of Dark Star and 4 of Alligator, and it seems possible that more than that is missing here.
If Eaton's timing is correct, 20 minutes of this show still isn't circulating.

(??/69 - The first 1969 entry on Deadlists is a 20-minute Dark Star which is undated - but Jim Powell notified me that it's actually a degraded copy of 6/5/69.)

Dick Latvala said about Bear's tapes: "There's hardly any 2-track stuff of '68 [in the Vault]. It's mostly 4-track or 8-track stuff in '68. Then '69 is the 2-track stuff - and Bear got pretty thorough, he taped almost every show, although there's a little missing in '69. But I found these cassettes of Bear's one day. I went, 'Oh my God! I've never even heard of these shows!' I went nuts on that box of tapes; I stayed up for days copying. I mean they're not usable - I don't think I could ever release any of it because they're not good enough quality - but they're sort of interesting as a listener."

So this indicates that there's probably not much more in the Vault from '68 than we have (save perhaps for more of the Anthem tour 4-tracks). But it sounds like their '69 collection is nearly complete (at least on cassettes) - there must have been many shows Latvala never bothered or got around to copying for anyone. David Lemieux has said there's a lot of 1969 in the Vault that doesn't circulate...

Latvala once listed the Morning Dew from the 5/3/69 Rocklin show as one of his favorite Dews from '69. So (along with Lemieux's posting of the Lovelight) there's proof that this show exists in the Vault, and must be pretty good....wish more of it would emerge!(An even more tantalizing mystery is whether the 5/3/69 Winterland second set, with its Dark Star suite, survives... The SBD of the first set is in horrible quality, so possibly there was something wrong with the recording. I would also love to know why the audience tapers that night didn't stay for the second set...)

Also... Deadlists notes that part of the Cryptical>Cosmic Charlie exists on the 10/24/69 audience tape, with this tantalizing description: "The Jam between Cryptical and Cosmic takes the opening riff of Cosmic Charlie & blends it with the rhythms of the Jam out of Cryptical." Unfortunately, it's missing from the Archive copy - the notes there suggest that maybe it wasn't actually part of this show. But we'll never know unless we hear it!

I have been trying to validate shows that were performed in Honolulu, HI June 12-13 1969. The bill was Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. I cannot find anything that suggest this show even exists except for a concert poster I found for this show. Have any ideas or insight?

Since 5-8-69 is my birthday, I've always been frustrated by the fact that not only can I not get my hands on an actual recording, nobody seems to know where or even if they played that day. For sentimental reasons, can anybody shed a little light?

Thanks for catching that - I was mistaken in listing that. Deadlists notes that it was a misdate for the 5/7/69 Golden Gate Park show, which we have. Nothing is known about any 5/8/69 show, and I doubt it exists.

Thanks Light..was afraid of that even though I've seen a 5-8-69 show in various texts including their playing some flower show in northern California lol. Ahh well, maybe they played in some alternate universe on my b-day!!! Fantastic site by the way

Hi Light - you gave me a shout-out today on the archive 2/5/69 - thanks for that! It's impossible to have a conversation on those review boards, so I decided to come over to your blog, which has been a very valuable resource for me for a long time - been more of a browser than a commenter. Yeah, that's great news regarding that AUD - I'll be sure to check back over there once in a while to see if Mr. Miller has indeed decided to patch & upgrade that show using the found AUD. Thanks again - Doug

For other readers, the story is that Leon Komar's AUD tape of 2/5/69 has surfaced (he also taped the 4/15/69 Omaha show) and has been sent to Charlie Miller to transfer. The person who had it says, "This is a rough recording so the most I'd expect is it can be used to patch some." Nonetheless, maybe the cuts in the show will now be filled!

A few more small corrections, when I get around to updating this list -

Lemieux included the Lovelight from 6/21/69 on a Tapers' Section but wrote that it was from 6/20/69. Hopefully it was his mistake, and not an indication that the Vault tape-dates are wrong, or that 6/20/69 is also missing from the Vault.

7/3/69 - Lemieux included Hard to Handle, Friend of Mine & Lovelight on the 7-29-13 Tapers' Section, so we now apparently have all of the show except for Mama Tried.

9/11/69 - The Easy Wind AUD is actually from 8/30/69.

10/24/69 - The //Other One>Cryptical>Cosmic Charlie// AUD is now on the Archive. (And it's essential listening.)

11/7/69 - The new Miller transfer is complete with all the songs.

12/20/69 - The full show has been released (though it's lacking Black Peter) - along with much of the missing portion of 12/21/69 (except for Mama Tried, UJB & High Time).

Fillmore East 9/27/69, late show was my first show. I was 14 and had been already been listening from '67 thanks to my older brother. I still still have the program from this show. Some memories of the show are crystal clear, some not so. Much was new to me. I remember them opening with Cryptical>The Other One. I was so thrilled to hear this since I'd been listening to Anthem steadily since I first heard it. Tried learning parts of it as I was learning to play guitar. I remember Jerry playing pedal steel but don't know what song it was on. The Morning Dew was very powerful. I'd only known the version from the first album. This one really blew me away. I don't remember Midnight Hour which you'd think I would since I already knew the song. Schoolgirl was great. I really dug Pig. They finished the night out with Alligator>Feedback and I'm almost certain And We Bid You Goodnight. The show ended around 5 a.m. This is the show I'd always hoped to find but alas this one went off into the night....

Thanks for the memories! You may have seen the reviews of these 9/26-27/69 Fillmore East shows here: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/september-27-1969-fillmore-east.html

The Dead opened for Country Joe & the Fish at most of the shows, but there's some confusion over whether they switched in the 9/27 late show & the Dead went on last. From your account it sounds like they closed.

Interesting about the pedal steel, since no one else mentions Garcia playing it during these shows. (Or, for that matter, during any Dead set in fall '69.) Did you see more Dead shows at the Fillmore East?

The 5/3/69 Sierra College afternoon set is featured on this week's Jam of the Week at dead.net (mislabeled as Winterland). Should be up for another week.Though the tape's only 55 minutes and four songs, it appears to be the whole show - the Dead were opening for the Youngbloods, and faced some long delays in their set. Garcia sounds pretty upset.

The tape cuts in at the start of a short, sloppy Morning Dew. Phil breaks a string, and there's a long 7-minute pause afterwards, with plenty of banter, mostly from Garcia:"In the meantime, we'll mention that nobody here is made of sugar, and nobody will melt if it rains. The worst thing that can happen is we might be electrocuted...and that's not so bad, shit."He continues, "Meanwhile, Phil broke a string on his bass, never happens, man, you know; this is one of those days when everything goes wrong at least once or twice."Weir: "By the time he gets it fixed, it'll be pouring rain." (Garcia: "Right.")During the long wait, there's some impatience in the audience, and Garcia shouts, "Hey man, we're hassling up here, can't you understand, we're in the middle of a hassle; if you want you can hassle along with us, you know; we're just hassling, it's all right. This is life, you know, this is no show; this is what we really do, it's the way we live; we're hassling here, like we normally do, and we never can play some simple music!"Phil tunes up...only to break a string again. Garcia exclaims, "Oh no, he just busted another one! This is impossible, completely impossible, 100% totally impossible!"But at least there's one diversion. Weir calls out, "Somebody bring that dog up here, that dog is too much."Garcia: "Yeah man, the dog from the movies man."Weir: "Hey, let's hear it for Hobo."As the wait continues, Weir decides it's time for a lame, off-color story: "I don't know any other jokes, but I'll tell you a true story..."

Finally things are fixed, and Garcia starts Lovelight. It's a nice, standard version, 25 minutes; he plays slide briefly in the middle jam.After a few minutes of tuning, he continues with It's All Over Baby Blue, singing it very emphatically. (There's a tapecut in the middle.)After that, he says brusquely, "This is gonna be it, goodbye, it's plenty."Weir: "After a short quick number."They close the show with Beat It On Down The Line, finishing with the merry-go-round theme.

The band splits without another word. Applause & shouts. An announcer says: "We're gonna take about ten minutes to unscramble this collection of stuff up here and set up the Youngbloods for another set. Keep warm. How about some intermission music, Bear?"

Lemieux included the Lovelight in the 4/30/07 Taper's Section. This brief show otherwise is one of the weakest of this period - for completists only - but I'm glad it was made available. It's rare to hear Garcia sound so pissed in a show. Whatever problems the Dead were having seem to have cleared up by the evening Winterland show. They repeated Lovelight and Baby Blue in the second set at Winterland, which doesn't circulate - hopefully it also survives in the Vault.